The classic game like you've never played it before.

Main menu

Post navigation

Solaroids has a brand spanking new trailer! A lot has changed while in Steam Early Access over the last year, and it was high time to do a bit of a refresh.

The old trailer was created when I released a early build as the last Xbox Live Indie Game (XBLIG), a whole story of its own. It was definitely getting a bit dated and long-in-the-tooth. It also took too long to get to the action that was a staple of the genre, not to mention the totally crappy local multiplayer footage I created late at night by myself, trying to pilot multiple ships (sigh). For the nostalgic, here’s a link to Trailer 1 – RIP.

Often people wonder why the name Solaroids, and also can’t help to include tongue-in-cheek phrases that relate to biological issues I’d care not to discuss with you all. This trailer hints towards the overarching story to the game still in the planning stages, and hence the mix of Solar with Asteroids for familiarity and homage to its roots.

I’m still learning a ton about both Indie game development and marketing, and this new trailer original started out with different pacing. Some kind folks that hang out on the game development discords gave me some constructive critique. This resulted in me trimming the front to show gameplay quicker and trimming the quotes towards the end – which probably were excessive. Personally, I still like the old one in some ways, so if you’re a trailer connoisseur, I’d love to hear your critique about both versions.

Here’s the original version of Trailer 2, which I’ve dubbed the “extended cut”:

If you haven’t played Solaroids before, or you haven’t played it for some time, I hope you you’ll give it a try (free demo here), or brush of the dust and give it some play-time with the new features. Either way, please share some feedback in the Steam Community or in the new Solaroids Discord server. Also, if you like it or know someone that might, please help spread the word by sharing in your circles on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, or your other favorite social platforms/forums. It’s hard to get noticed among so many games.

Solaroids is available on Steam Early Access and is still being actively developed by Chad Yates as part-time Indie game developer. Come try out the free Demo, join the Community HUB on steam, or join the ranks of brave fighter pilots defending the solar system and competing for high scores and prestige!

Hello Everyone! Just a small update to release a few new features, and round up a few bugs — some of which were released as hot-fixes several weeks ago.

As players rack up more and more impressive scores, I thought it would be cool for you to be able to compare the control style you typically use with those of the other players. Classic and Hybrid (single-stick) control styles are the purest and most challenging modes, and as discussed in a previous update, come with some scoring advantages. Now you’ll be able to see what control style a given score was achieved with. Next to scores in the global leaderboards you’ll see a symbol denoting which control style was used: (C)lassic, (H)ybrid, and (M)odern. Note that this is only computed for new scores going forward, so any current scores are classified as Unknown and won’t show a symbol until you beat your previous bests.

New Features

The Control Style used to achieve a score is now recorded and displayed next to the high score. (C)lassic, (H)ybrid, (M)odern. You have to have played in a particular style most of the time for it to count.

German translation updates.

Cleans up old log files when debug logging is disabled.

Issues Addressed

Ensure friend leaderboards immediately update in-game.

Adjust thruster sounds for Modern (dual-stick) control style.

Tune bullet sound effects.

Fix issue where the top-X scores were shown instead of an empty list when you don’t have any friends that play Solaroids (what a shame).

Previously Released Patches

Fix issue with Control Style text in HUDs overlapping when multiple players are choosing their control style at the same time.

Fix crash on some machines/locales when player stat displays are generated.

I hope you enjoy the new refinements and features.

Once again… Happy blasting!!

Solaroids is available on Steam Early Access and is still being actively developed by Chad Yates as part-time Indie game developer. Come try out the free Demo, join the Community HUB on steam, or join the ranks of brave fighter pilots defending the solar system and competing for high scores and prestige!

It is awesome to see the competition getting fierce on the leaderboards, as well as players taking advantage of the new Control Styles and Score Multiplier. Not long ago, I wouldn’t have thought I would see high scores past maybe 10 million. I’m going to need to sit down and seriously see if I can even compete at my own game, as my once thought competitive score of 7.5 million is starting to look long-in-the-tooth!
I just released a set of new features primarily focused on competition. I’ve had Statistics behind the scenes for some time, but I’ve always wanted to present them in-game. Showing the last/best score in each player HUD was one such feature, and I’m happy to report that now several other useful (and maybe some non-useful) statistics are now readily displayed while playing alone or with friends.

The current set of stats are shown once a round has been complted and before continuing (or while requesting to forfeit). For player 1 (normally tied to the steam account), It will display the recorded Overall steam stats in addition to showing temporary session stats for Current, Last, and Highest, For players 2-4, only stats for the current game session are tracked. If there are particular stats that you think should replace some of these, let me know in the comments or Community Hub.

In addition to Stats, I’ve also decided to give each player their own mini high score listings to show their overall ranking between rounds. This includes Local, Global, and Friend listings.

What’s a game based on a competitive score mechanic without more ways to rank yourself? I hope you enjoy 1-UP’ing your friends, or at least knowing at a glance who’s the best!

I also managed to get a couple of smaller features in based on community feedback. If you are one of the players that had wished for “classic” twin-stick style controls (aka Geometry Wars / Robotron) when using the Modern (dual-stick) control style, then you might enjoy the new Fire on Aim option under the Gameplay menu. Fire on Aim augments the Autofire setting to start firing just by aiming the ship. One consequence of this though, is that it is harder to conserve your Primary Weapon ammo. However, if you’re careful not to fully press the thumb stick all the way, you can actually aim without firing as well.

Another set of small features relate to a recent request by a player to “simplify” the arena. I think they were longing for an experience closer to some of the retro games long ago, without backdrop clutter competing against energy bullets etc. As such, I’ve made it possible to adjust the background elements, such as the stars and nebula, to simplify, fade, or turn them off completely. Find these settings under the Effects options menu: Stars, Background Opacity, and Stars Opacity.

I hope you enjoy the new refinements and features. Let me know in the comments or Community Hub what you think so far, how it should evolve, and if you have any favorite stats.

New Features

Fire on Aim Option. When turned on automatically fires when aiming the ship while in the Modern (dual-stick) control style — similar to simple twin-stick shooters.

When using the Modern (dual-stick) control style, Dynamic Braking will not be engaged unless you release the aiming control (i.e. right thumb stick). This allows you to perform drifting strafe maneuvers similar to Classic or Hybrid control styles.

Previously Released Patches

The default control style is now Modern (dual-stick) instead of Classic.

Fix issue with missile collisions.

I hope you enjoy the new refinements and features. Let me know in the comments what you think so far, how it should evolve, and if you have any favorite stats.

Once again… Happy blasting!!

Solaroids is available on Steam Early Access and is still being actively developed by Chad Yates as part-time Indie game developer. Come try out the free Demo, join the Community HUB on steam, or join the ranks of brave fighter pilots defending the solar system and competing for high scores and prestige!

Hello everyone! This is just a small update to release a few features that I didn’t want to wait for a bigger update.

First, watching players at a local gaming event, and on YouTube, I fast tracked an idea I had for helping to identify power-ups that can be used. Now if a power-up can’t be collected, or wouldn’t be useful to collect, they will be drawn ghosted as an indicator. Cases where power-ups can’t be collected are when you’re maxed out on a capability such as bullet rate/velocity/strength, or for repair power-ups, when your already fully repaired. In the later case, previously it would collect it anyway, but I felt that was misleading since other power-ups would just fail to collect. I hope now it will be more clear when to chase after the buggers!

I also improved the ability to swap outriders for fresh ones. If you have a bunch of outriders and one of them is more damaged than the one your about to pick up, they will be exchanged. Previously it wouldn’t always swap them out.

Oh and one more. After watching Space Game Junkie do infinity circles around two of the early bosses trying to get their own missiles to hit each other, I just had to enable it. So now after a short delay, enemy missiles can actually hit enemies if your adept with the piloting skills!

I hope you enjoy the mini-update and have a great weekend!!

New Features

Drifting power-ups are now transparent “ghosted” if you will not be able to pick them up — for example if you have already maxed out the capability. This includes repair power-ups, so no longer will you feel like you have to chase something down to only find out that it wasn’t useful at that moment.

Adjusted floating power-up effects to make the central icon graphics more visible.

Enemy missiles can now be used against them. After a delay, their missiles can hit enemy ships including the source of the missile.

Issues Addressed

Swapping outriders for outriders of better health wasn’t working as intended. You should now be able to swap a damaged outrider for one in better condition.

Solaroids is available on Steam Early Access and is still being actively developed by Chad Yates as part-time Indie game developer. Come try out the free Demo, join the Community HUB on steam, or join the ranks of brave fighter pilots defending the solar system and competing for high scores and prestige!

One of the greatest things as an Indie game developer is too be able to watch people play your creation first hand. I’ve been fortunate to be able to participate in several Vandal Overnight Games events here at the local University. The University of Idaho sponsors both Fall and a Spring semester event each year, and it is always loads of fun for everyone. I usually spend most of my time hanging out with players in the Solaroids area, but there is a lot going on all over related to gaming of all kinds. From board games, physical games, card games, VR, classics, tournaments, etc. there is something for every game lover. My Solaroids T-Shirt wearing kids have a great time too, whether they are playing Solaroids or board games in the nearby rooms.

This spring (April 7th) I saw both folks from previous events as well as some new faces. From early afternoon till close to midnight there was an almost constant stream of players coming, playing for a while, leaving, and then coming back, sometimes multiple times. I don’t know how many player hours were clocked that afternoon evening, but there almost wasn’t a time where the controllers didn’t have players both young and old at the helm.

One thing I learned this time is to not take your stuff for granted! I thought I had everything together and pretty much ready to grab and go from the last Solaroids event in December (a gaming themed Holiday party for work), but I spent way to long tracking down a “lost” Display Port to HDMI adapter that ended up getting misplaced in the rush. In addition, while setting up I discovered that my old XBox 360 wireless controller adapter was not going to power-up no matter how many times I unplugged and plugged it in, switched USB ports, or rebooted! Luckily home wasn’t far away with both a spare and XBox ONE variants, and my lovely assistant still at home was ready to save my bacon!

New Promotional Materials

This spring I decided to amp it up a bit and so spent the weekend before, and a few evenings, re-creating my box art in a a brighter and higher resolution format so I could produce a banner graphic and token cards.

The banner graphic turned out pretty good despite my nervousness of never having made one before myself. At 36×92 inches and exported at 300dpi it was a massive 10,800x 27,600 pixels. My original box art I created in the GIMP long ago but was never designed for print. I went back to my source material and re-composed the original box art in Inkscape, my vector illustration program of choice, and then added a few of the more recent visuals and descriptive text. I even modified a game mode I have that just draws the background elements to only draw the stars so I could take advantage of my in game compositing to make a new star backdrop. If you look really close you’ll see where I mirrored it to fill the bottom of the banner!! Well I’m pretty happy with it and it looked great at the event. Even the folks at the local FedEx printers payed me compliments, and I was able to give a token card to one of them that was really interested that it ran on Linux.

Speaking of which, the token cards turned out really well as well, and I was able to hand out a bunch throughout the event. In addition to the rest of the game, I wrote the Soundtrack myself over the course of development, so I decided it would be cool to include a “Free with Purchase” Steam Key for the Soundtrack as a Downloadable Content (DLC) that they could use or pass along. Time will tell whether these get activated, but I thought it would be a good thank-you-for-playing freebie.

Solaroids is available on Steam Early Access and is still being actively developed by Chad Yates as part-time Indie game developer. Come try out the free Demo, join the Community HUB on steam, or join the ranks of brave fighter pilots defending the solar system and competing for high scores and prestige!

It’s finally here!! In addition to the expert control and challenge of the classic Asteroids® controls, Solaroids now has more modern control styles for you (or your friends) enjoyment! I’m happy to introduce Hybrid (single-stick) and Modern (dual-stick) control styles. Each of the four players can choose their own control style so no pilot is left behind.

If you enjoy Twin-stick shooters, now is the time to test your skills against veteran players. Just select the Modern (dual-stick) control style before joining or from the player options menu while in-game.

Use one thumb-stick to thrust and orient your ship, or both at the same time to perform advanced dodging and strafing.

If you almost like the classic controls but wish you could use one of the thumb-sticks to control the orientation of your ship, we have you covered too. Just select the Hybrid (single-stick) control style.

Another requested feature by several players has been to add “drum brakes”. While I can’t literally add them, it is space after all, I’ve done the next best thing. I’ve added lateral thrusters that you can use manually for advanced strafing maneuvers, but you can also activate all thrusters to dynamically slow your ship regardless of the direction it is facing. In Modern (dual-stick) mode this happens automatically whenever you release the movement stick. For Hybrid (single-stick) and Classic modes it can be engaged by pressing both forward and reverse thrusters at the same time.

But wait, that’s not all! All these control styles are also available using keyboard and mouse. Yes, that’s right, if you prefer to use the utility of the mouse to aim and fire, both Hybrid and Modern styles are augmented with mouse controls along with the ability to re-bind the mouse buttons to your liking.

In addition to mouse support in-game, the main menu and options menus have been re-written to support the mouse as well so click away. This also includes the control layout editor, so now you can click controls to re-bind them instead of having to hold the existing binding to activate reconfigure mode. Something that you may need if you have a controller that doesn’t have some of the default bindings.

With the exception of the mouse movement, all thumb-sticks and buttons are reconfigurable to your tastes so if you don’t like the default layout I’ve chosen, mix it up!

These are the big features, however there are a lot of other little features that have also been tweaked or introduced. Let me know if I hit something you like, or if the feature you’ve been hoping for is not available yet. I’m totally open for suggestions, and most have found a way into the game in one form or another.

I hope you enjoy the update. Let the blasting commence!

New Features

Alternate control styles:

Classic – This is the original control scheme as in the original Asteroids, aka “tank” controls.

Hybrid (single-stick) – Orient the ship with the left thumb-stick or use the mouse to both orient and fire your primary and secondary weapons.

Modern (dual-stick) – Orient the ship with the left thumb-stick and control your thrusters with the right thumb-stick.

Lateral thrusters for advanced pilots.

Increase power of all thrusters.

Dynamic braking. In Classic and single-stick mode, holding down both forward and reverse thrusters will slow the ship gradually to a stop. In dual-stick mode dynamic braking is automatically engaged when idle.

Basic score multipliers. They go up for each kill and go down gradually when idle — or really fast when you take a hit.

If the spawn location near the sun is congested, spawning will be retried at an alternate location.

Moved some options that were under Video to Gameplay and a new Effects menu as the video menu was getting crowded and too broad.

Allow changing game play options while in-game. Now you can tweak friendly fire/collisions after starting.

Early access reminder/disclaimer shown before title. You can skip it the same as the DynF/X Digital splash screen.

Early Access version is now displayed in the lower right corner of the title screen.

Beta is displayed when running an alternate build.

Mouse navigation support in the main menu and option menus.

You can use the mouse to pick the control to reconfigure which is especially useful if your controller doesn’t have the same buttons to “hold down”.

You can left click the mouse button to skip the splash screen and early access disclaimer screens.

Default parallax is now 200% instead of 400%.

Adjusted layout and flow of HUDs:

Forfeit dialog is now within the player’s HUD to not disrupt the flow of other players.

When joining, allow the introduction of minimal configuration choices before entering the game.

Move ship color selection to a dedicated step in the HUD.

Add control style selection as a step within the HUD using Left/Right on the D-Pad/Keys.

Add ability to navigate to next and previous HUD.

Display icons indicating which directions on the D-Pad/Keys can be used to change options.

Rapid fire power-up now responds to the recharge rate power up, increasing the rate of fire. Very satisfying!

Steam profile icon now displayed for the player tied to the steam account (player 1).

If stand-in machine translations are used, they will be indicated with an asterisk (*) until they have been reviewed and/or translated by a real human.

Solaroids is available on Steam Early Access and is still being actively developed by Chad Yates as part-time Indie game developer. Come try out the free Demo, join the Community HUB on steam, or join the ranks of brave fighter pilots defending the solar system and competing for high scores and prestige!

Watching some videos of the more established players resulted in a conversation about how funny it would be to add kamikaze dynamics to Solaroids:

“Thank you! I like every single aspect of this game. It’s wonderful 🙂 One Suggestion: It would be very funny if I could use my spaceship for Kamikaze attacks. In higher Levels, when I loose a life and all my guns, but I do have left some spaceships, it would be very cool if my spaceship would do some serious damage to the enemies, if I hit them with full speed.” – Damnax 1985

I little thinking about how it could be incorporated without changing the “rules” of the game to drastically, and this was my response:

“Thank you for the compliments! That’s an interesting idea, kamikaze! I could incorporate speed into damage calculations as a multiplier of sorts. I could also possibly make player ships the only thing that can take out the core of a boss before all peripheral parts have been destroyed. So if the core is exposed you could ram it there and blow the whole thing up for the cost of a life. What do you think?” – Me

Soon I had found time to implement it and it worked pretty well. When moving fast enough, when your ship explodes by hitting some physical object, be it an asteroid, mine, other players when friendly collisions is turned on, or your formidable foes, it will cause your own core to detonate unleashing a shock-wave of molten plasma.

But when you have a hierarchical system of parts that the bosses are made up of, you can’t just “blow the whole thing up” and expect everything to be gone. You need to take that things apart!

Destructible Cores

Kamikaze Dynamics + Destructible Cores = fun times!

If you’ve played Solaroids before, I hope you enjoy the subtle “tricks” and random possibilities this adds during both single player and crazy local co-op sessions. I’ve tried to load up the game with little details and strategic secrets I’ve carefully balanced into the game for your discovery. If you haven’t tried Solaroids before, give the Free Demo available on the Steam store page a whirl by yourself or with your friends and family and don’t forget join the Community Hub. There are many more features on the way including mouse and twin-stick style controls on immediate horizon, and an alternate BETA Branch for both the full game and the demo, and I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions to make it the best Asteroids “clone” available.

Solaroids is available on Steam Early Access and is still being actively developed by Chad Yates as part-time Indie game developer. Come try out the free Demo, join the Community HUB on steam, or join the ranks of brave fighter pilots defending the solar system and competing for high scores and prestige!

The next big thing I’m working on (and getting close to completion), are alternatives to the classic “tank” controls. Soon you’ll be able to use the mouse to orient the ship when playing with keyboard controls, and use the thumb sticks to orient the ship when using controllers with analog capabilities. I’m also planning some limited twin-stick style controls.

This update adds a few small features and tweaks that I hope you’ll enjoy till then. There’s a new power-up, along with some balancing/bug fixes, but probably the most exciting is that some of the Terminator style bosses can now be destroyed before finishing off all their peripheral parts. Alas, normal energy-based guns can’t do this, but missiles can, and so can your ship. So… as at least one person requested, and others have eluded to, the ability to kamikaze is born! It’s quite satisfying to see the remaining pieces of the boss drift off as space debris.

New Features

Added a Primary Weapon Recharge power-up which allows more standard/outrider bullets to be fired at once (normally limited to 4). This also increases the auto-fire rate.

Bonus ships are less likely to be found and can only be collected up to level 10.

Add kamikaze dynamic. Ramming asteroids and enemies at high speed result in detonation of your ships core.

Enemy cores can now be destroyed using missiles (or player ships) before all peripheral parts have been destroyed. Normally they are invulnerable until they are the last remaining piece.

Free Play mode has now been locked until level 10 has been beaten.

Issues Addressed

Main cannon bullets were not being limited to 4 as they were supposed to.

Terminator MKII bosses were not firing strafe bullets as they were supposed to.

Fixed issue that caused activation of “trial mode”.

Solaroids is available on Steam Early Access and is still being actively developed by Chad Yates as part-time Indie game developer. Come try out the free Demo, join the Community HUB on steam, or join the ranks of brave fighter pilots defending the solar system and competing for high scores and prestige!

An often requested feature, the Parallax option adds depth to the background elements providing a richer visual experience. It is adjustable between 0-400% to suite your tastes, and can also be used with or without the Seamless Wrapping option turned on.

I’ve also discovered that the frameworks that I use (XNA/XACT/FNA) do not support disconnection of external audio devices while in-game. I’ve come up with a workaround for Windows (Vista+) but finding solutions for Linux/OSX (and pre-vista) are still ongoing research. In the meantime be careful with your USB.

New Features

Add Parallax video option. When enabled, stars and other background elements have simulated depth. Adjustable from Off to 400%.

Issues Addressed

Crash/freeze on Windows when unplugging external (i.e. USB) audio devices that are being used by the game.

Previously Released Patches

Fixed issue where player and outriders could “lose” their color.

Solaroids is available on Steam Early Access and is still being actively developed by Chad Yates as part-time Indie game developer. Come try out the free Demo, join the Community HUB on steam, or join the ranks of brave fighter pilots defending the solar system and competing for high scores and prestige!

I’ve always though it would be cool to use 2D parallax techniques in Solaroids, but I always had reservations. Who doesn’t like stars whizzing by at light speed and the sense of depth that multiple layers of background elements can provide.

When I started developing Solaroids I knew I wanted nebula to provide some kind of “ground” for the player. Solaroids being an inertia based game, and having a larger than single screen playing area, I felt it was key to provide a stable background in order to maintain a sense of location. As the player thrusts and drifts a long in a heavily populated arena of moving asteroids, enemies, and hazards, how else are they going to keep track of their current velocity. It was for these reasons, the time it would take to try it out to confirm or debunk my theories, and only a few requests for it, that I didn’t until just recently set out to experiment with it.

Solaroids has 6 dedicated layers that make up the current visuals.

Backdrop stars / distant gas clouds

Sprite based stars

Nebula’s, galaxies, planets

Gameplay

Energy

Lens effects

If parallax was to be added it was going to be to layers 1-3 only. So after a recent reminder from a dedicated player that it needed it, and recent completion of some higher priority features, I set out to experiment by incorporating parallax math into those three layers. This wouldn’t make individual elements (stars, nebula, etc) exist at there own simulated depth, but it would be able help prove out whether the technique would ruin gameplay or not, and also let me play with adjusting the amount. It ended up looking pretty good. Musing about with the ship, at moderate amounts it didn’t seem to affect my ability to play the game either. At extreme amounts it did give more of a “floaty” sensation, and some might even experience a bit of nausea, so having a way to turn it off, or control the amount would definitely need to be in the final version. A quick check with a player on a restricted alpha branch, and it was confirmed it needed more!

Convinced that the parallax had merit now, and knowing it would be a user option, I set out to take those three layers and allow individual elements to have unique depths within the layer. This really took it to the next level, so I posted a preview video to YouTube and twitter (above). Based on the feedback and response I got I was definitely on the right track. Even my wife, when she saw it for the first time, said that I needed to redo my trailer with parallax as it looked so much better.

All would seem sunny and bright at this point, but of course there’s always something that doesn’t go smoothly. For this feature, that was the Seamless Wrapping mode I had just got done putting in the game before Christmas.

Let’s go back a bit. Originally, Solaroids had a wrapping arena where traveling through one edge of the world would end up with the player ending up on the other side. Just like the original Asteroids. The caveat to this is that you can’t see what’s on the other side because Solaroids plays out on a large scrolling arena. Is it a feature or a bug? Well many players felt it was disorienting while fighting enemy ships, especially in the corners, and they are right. So a feature dubbed Seamless Wrapping was introduced that when active would eliminate the edges, and instead allow the player to keep flying as if they hadn’t wrapped, even though they really had.

From the above video one would think it was plain and simple, but that was the final product. It ends up that seamless wrapping and parallax don’t really go well hand in hand, which makes some sense, since it’s kind of like folding space and not something that I don’t have a lot of personal experience with.

One way of creating parallax in background elements is to dampen the elements behind the gameplay layer which is scrolling by at the nominal rate. Imagine your flying along and the coordinates of you ship wrap around. So at that moment when you cross over there is a discontinuity on any layer that isn’t at the nominal scroll rate. A star in the background can’t be offset appropriately for both sides of the wrap. This can be easily mitigated if each layer is a seamless texture, but I needed to be able to put actual objects and landmarks in the background. I solve this by keeping track of the original unwrapped position of the camera, and then using that value to compute the amount of parallax offset to apply.

One caveat of this method, is that if you keep flying in the same direction, the background elements continue to shift. This isn’t noticeable since the world is being seamlessly wrapped, but it does pose a challenge for position tracking of any elements in the background with respect to the game play layer. In Solaroids a prime example of this is the sun. The sun is in the background, but it is also tracked in the player reticle showing the direction to it. The perceived position of the sun, taking into account parallax, has to be computed (projected) from parallax space into game space in order to correctly find the direction to the sun.

So the lesson to be learned is: seemingly simple features by themselves can take on new complexity when combined together.

Solaroids is available on Steam Early Access and is still being actively developed by Chad Yates as part-time Indie game developer. Come try out the free Demo, join the Community HUB on steam, or join the ranks of brave fighter pilots defending the solar system and competing for high scores and prestige!